


we go under

by sparxwrites



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Fights, Found Family, Gen, Near Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7350514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes them all far, far too long to realise what they’re fighting. To realise why the small, bloated-corpse creatures with blue-black skin and bloody hands aren’t going down despite their best efforts, to realise why for every two that fall another takes its place – to realise why, with every hit to the creatures, their teammates flinch and yelp.</p>
<p>(In which Vox Machina end up in a fight they may not be able to win.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we go under

**Author's Note:**

> for @ninzja on tumblr, as a thank-you for donating towards the “lying’s new graphics card” fund - it ended up a little over 1k, but hey ho. shoutout to lying for helping me actually find the monsters to throw at these poor children, given i realised fairly quickly that trying to write dnd fic whilst knowing Very Little about dnd was harder than it first sounded. i still did a little bit of fudging, but hopefully little enough that those of you who Know Things can ignore it.

It takes them all far, far too long to realise what they’re fighting. To realise why the small, bloated-corpse creatures with blue-black skin and bloody hands aren’t going down despite their best efforts, to realise why for every two that fall another takes its place – to realise why, with every hit to the creatures, their teammates flinch and yelp.

“Jovoc!” yells Pike, suddenly, as she drags her sword out of a newly-created corpse and Keyleth cries out in pain to her left. She’s hunched over, shaking, face pale. “They’re jovoc, if you attack them they broadcast the damage, so don’t-”

Grog, several feet away, brings his hammer down onto the skull of one of the creatures with a roar. The jovoc drops like a stone, head caved in, though another one takes its place in an instant. Behind him, Vax makes a sharp noise through gritted teeth.

Pike, also, drops like a stone.

It takes them all a moment to notice she’s gone, a crumpled form on the floor amidst the chaos of the battle, but Grog’s bellow of alarm is enough to make everyone look. “Grog, get back!” shouts Scanlan, almost immediately, despite the wild look of almost-fear in his eyes, as Grog takes a huge swipe at two of the jovoc clamouring to strike a blow in front of him and almost immediately roars in pain. “If you hurt them, it hurts you too, you need to get _back_ -”

The creatures, jovoc, are small, but there are a _lot_ of them, and trying to disentangle from them, get some distance, is like trying to escape a tidal wave. Keyleth is next to fall. Even as she turns to run, to get behind Vex and Percy so they can pick the jovoc off from a distance, the creatures are on her.

She screams as she goes down, one jovoc slashing at her legs with its long, clawed fingers and another on her back, biting down into the soft meat of her shoulder. It’s an _awful_ sound, bad enough that Vex’s hands stutter on her bow, and she nearly drops an arrow – before her face contorts in fury and she looses one arrow, two, three, and takes down the two jovoc that brought Keyleth limp and bleeding to the floor.

She forgets, in her fury and fear, that Grog is still in range. He takes the hits along with the jovoc, bellowing rage and pain – but he stays upright, stays standing and fighting. The brief fist of utter terror that had clenched around Vex’s heart at the thought of killing one of their _own_ loosens, ever so slightly.

It becomes clear, though, moments later, that jovoc are not all they’re facing. The small tanar’ri are dangerous enough, but there’s something _else_ , something fast and quiet and good at using the shadows when Grog’s yells of rage are abruptly silenced. It’s too quick for the few of them remaining on their feet to see it happen, a blur of motion – but one minute Grog’s upright, and the next he’s not, red drenched down his front, stomach slashed open wide by a wickedly sharp blade.

A humanoid wearing black, gleaming leather armour, with a dagger in one hand and a scimitar in the other, _grins_. Then it’s moving again, heading towards Vax with a silent speed and dexterity beyond anything natural.

“Vax!” yells Percy, no time in the heat of battle for calling out to Grog. Protect the living, first, then worry about the maybe-dead. He’s raising his gun towards the new threat even as he shouts, squinting down the sight to take careful aim before squeezing the trigger and bracing himself against the _boom-crack_ and jarring retort of the pistol. 

“On it!” calls Vax back. He waits for Percy’s shot to hit, to force the creature to stagger backwards, before darting forward to meet the creature, engaging it on its own terms – face to face, blade to blade, with footwork so fast and light that it’s dizzying to look at.

Vax is fast, and good with his daggers, weaving around the creature Scanlan identifies with a yell moments later as a _kelvezu_ – short, for a tanar’ri, barely five foot high with purple-red skin – but not good enough. The creature’s weapons are enchanted, and it has its own magic as well, and Vax staggers with its blade through his gut and then _crumples_ in a loose, fluid way that’s sickening to watch.

Not before wounding the kelvezu, though. With Scanlan’s ever-present musical inspiration as guidance, he’d landed several blows, some of them distinctly nasty-looking. The kelvezu’s breathing hard, moving sluggishly, despite its bared teeth and persistent aggression.

Maybe, thinks Percy, looking at his fallen friends- his fallen _family_ , with fear in his heart and murder in his eyes. Just maybe, they have a chance.

Vex darts past him, bow notched, hair whipping around her head in a dark halo. “If my brother’s dead, I’m going to slaughter _every last one of you_ ,” she calls to the creatures, sweet and dripping with menace, and then spins away in her light-footed dance, pulling back far enough to loose an arrow into one of the jovoc that had broken ranks and lunged for Percy.

His stomach plummets, a sharp free-fall that leaves him feeling sick at the thought of Vax dead, _any_ of them dead – but he squares his shoulders nonetheless, raises his gun, takes a shot. Behind him, Scanlan raises his voice in encouragement, a brief line of song that wavers with fear when he glances at Pike’s crumpled form. The shot strikes true even so, hitting the shoulder of the already-weakened kelvezu and sending it reeling back with the force of the impact, hissing and snarling.

A half-second later, one of Vex’s arrows sails past his ear, missing him by a hair’s breadth, and buries itself in the kelvezu’s eye socket almost up to the fletching. The head of the arrow breaks its way through the back of the creature’s skull in a shower of bone and gore, and the kelvezu drops like a stone.

“And _stay_ down,” shouts Scanlan, from somewhere behind Percy, the bravado somewhat dampened by the crack in his voice, the way his eyes immediately dart to Pike’s still form.

Their leader dead, the jovoc scatter, disappearing as quickly as they’d come, barking and chittering in Abyssal as they run. They vanish back into the trees, blue-black bodies blending easily with the shadows, rendering them almost invisible within seconds. There one minute, gone the next.

In any other circumstances, Percy would have pursued them, hot on Grog’s heels and Vex shadowing the pair of them. Vex would already be at the fallen kelvezu’s side, rifling through its pockets for loot. Scanlan would be loudly proclaiming their victory with one of his improvised, wildly inappropriate songs.

Instead, the minute the enemy are gone, Vex is on her knees at Vax’s side. Scanlan, with shorter legs and less practice running, takes a half-second more to get to Pike’s 

Percy hesitates, torn – neither Keyleth nor Grog have someone by their side, and both are corpse-still and deathly pale and for a moment he can’t _breathe_ \- but then the world starts moving again, and he runs for Keyleth, grabbing at the pouch on his hip as he does so. Keyleth is closer, and smaller, and though Grog’s chest is still rising in uneven little flutters, Keyleth’s is not.

The healing potion’s in his hand before he’s even hit his knees next to her, ripping the cork out with his teeth and pushing the neck of the cool glass bottle into her mouth. It clacks against her teeth, his hands shaking too badly for it not to, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t _care_ -

Keyleth gasps, draws in a sharp, hacking breath as the potion hits her stomach, suffuses her in warmth as her wounds slowly begin to close. Percy’s on his feet in an instant, before her eyes are even open, running over to Grog with another potion in hand, tipping it down the goliath’s throat and watching as his stomach seals itself back up.

Nearby, Pike eyes are fluttering open as Scanlan whispers magic over her, one hand creeping up to clutch her holy symbol and add her own voice to the spell when she’s strong enough to speak. Vax makes a noise of pain, short and sharp, as Vex heals him enough to haul him up into her arms and clutch him close. He reaches out to Keyleth, and she crawls over, collapsing heavily against both of them and just _breathing_.

Last of all is Grog, who opens his eyes with a half-shout, hands grabbing wildly at Percy’s coat, half-convinced there’s still a fight to be won. As he slumps back to the ground, realising the enemy is gone, Percy exhales – quiet relief written in the slump of his shoulders, the slow closing of his eyes.

Around him, he feels his family do the same, the fear draining away into the familiar adrenaline-comedown exhaustion, the fading fear a fuzzy haze around his thoughts. The battle is over. The battle is won. Vox Machina is again, against all odds, still alive.


End file.
